I was too young to remember the first phase of the post war housing development in the field at Brimble. I can remember the construction of the bungalows and seeing the wooden pegs in position, marking the locations for the houses in the final phase at the lower end in 1954.

There were three serious fires in the village during my childhood, in addition to the one at Corner Cottage. The one that I can vividly remember was the 1952 fire at ‘Burgess’, now known as Acorn Cottage, the residence of Mrs. Argylls, who ran weekly rug making classes for village children. I was walking back, with my mother, from my grandparent’s house in Brimble Cottages and witnessed the unfolding drama standing on the opposite side of the road, watching the flames leaping from the thatched roof into the sky. Fire crews attended from Sturminster Newton, Sherborne, Shaftesbury and Blandford. Strong winds and poor water pressure, combined with a twenty minute delay waiting for an electrician to arrive, to disconnect the mains power supply, meant that it was not possible to save the house from almost total destruction, with only the outside walls left standing.

A newly built barn at Caundle Farm was destroyed by fire in the December of 1959. The cause of the fire was never established, although arson was suspected. There was a delay in raising the alarm with no one living on site at the time, as the farmhouse had yet to be constructed. The sound of the asbestos roof cracking and exploding could be throughout the village, as a result of the intense heat generated by the fire.

The Tithe Barn at Court Barton was destroyed by fire in 1963 as a result of children playing with matches catching the straw stored in the barn alight. The fire spread rapidly and the children involved only narrowly escaped the blazing inferno.

After the demise of the castle, or probably a more accurate description fortified Manor House, at Court Barton the tithe barn had been constructed on the northern boundary of the site in the 17^th Century, using stone from the ruined castle. Most of the public footpaths and bridle-ways radiate from here and as recently as 1821 regular Manorial Court Sessions were being held in the tithe barn. An Administrator carried out the administration of the Manor under the supervision of an annual ‘Court Baron’, with the proceedings recorded by the Steward, or his deputy, in the Manorial Court Rolls. Two volumes only of these records, covering the years 1788 to 1821, have survived. The first business at each Court was the presentment of a regulation in regard to straying cattle. This is fully set out in the first year and repeated in succeeding years, then follows the appointment of Hay-wards and Tithing-men one of each for Caundle and one of each for Woodrow. The duty of a Hayward was to look after hedges and fences, to keep cattle from injuring them and to impound stray cattle in the Pound, which at that time was situated where the Jubilee Oak now stands, at the cross roads at the upper end of the village. The duty of a Tithing-man was to preserve good order and enforce observance of the Sabbath a forerunner of the early village constable. The pound was later relocated to the right hand side of the entrance to Court Barton where the Coronation May tree now stands.

A sufficient number of tenants were required to attend in order to constitute a meeting of the Court. Apart from the appointments the entries recorded in the Court Rolls refer mainly to reports on straying cattle, the repair of buildings, reports of deaths and changes of tenancies, nuisances and encroachments.

From 1852 some of the responsibilities of the ‘Court Baron’ appear to have been taken over by the Vestry Meetings, at which appointments were then made for a Guardian, a Way-Warden and two Overseers responsible for the assessment, and collection, of rates to pay for handouts to the poor. The Guardian replaced the Tithing-man and the Way-warden. Later it became the normal practice to draw up a shortlist of names for Overseers foe presentation to the Justices who made the final choice. The Vestry proceedings were not entirely under the control of the church officials, however they did have a strong influence, and the affairs of the parish and the church were closely inter linked at this time. It was the vestry meeting that obtained the new burial ground in Drove Road and founded the primary school. In 1894 under the terms of a local government act, passed by the Houses of Parliament, the administration of parish affairs was transferred to a Parish Meeting.

After the sad loss of the tithe barn at Court Barton, the one at Barrow Hill Farm, which had fallen into a state of disrepair, resulted in the collapse of its roof. The remaining walls were demolished at the time of the residential development of the site in 1990, leaving just one surviving tithe barn in the village at Newleaze Farm.

Mrs. Argylls’ rug making class in 1955

Golden Hill Stores

In my early childhood the village shop was located at the top of Golden Hill, or Shop Hill as it was more commonly known at the time, in the property now known as the Old Post House. In 1954 the retiring owners Mr and Mrs Collis sold the business to Dikes of Stalbridge. The shop then transferred to the former bake-house on the opposite side of the road, purchased from the retiring owner Baker Hayes along with Golden Hill Cottage, which provided the accommodation for the first shop manager shop manager a Mr. Bealing assisted by his wife. I can remember being given a free ice cream on the first day of opening, a real treat for a young child in 1952. Mrs. Margaret Downton took over the management of the shop and roll of postmistress in 1957, remaining in post until her retirement in to 1981.

Most families relied on the shop for the bulk of their weekly provisions. Bread, meat and milk and fish were delivered to the door Bread was delivered by Dikes Bakery and also by Arthur Ratley from the Co-operative stores in Stalbridge High Street. Fred Baverstock, working for George Parsons at Stalbridge Weston, and two Stalbridge butchers, Mr Carter and Albert Gray, delivered meat and Herbie Parsons had a weekly fish round.

The shop provided residents with a meeting place and the opportunity to exchange the latest gossip. Petrol could be purchased from a hand operated Shell petrol pump located at the front of the shop.

Before the Second World War Mr. and Mrs. Chaldicott were the proprietors of a shop on an adjoining site, where Darnell House now stands. Groceries were delivered to remote dwellings and outlying farms by pony and trap, with the pony kept in a stable at the rear of the premises. In the late 1930s the property fell into disrepair, due to lack of maintenance to the thatched roof, and was demolished. The lower part of the front elevation is still visible, as it forms the retaining wall for the front garden of Darnell House. During my childhood the site was derelict an overgrown, owned by a couple living in Kent who had erected a timber framed single storey building, clad in galvanised iron sheeting, providing them with very basic holiday accommodation every summer.

One of the most noticeable changes to have taken place in the fields surrounding the village, when compared to my childhood, is the disappearance of dairy cows from the fields. There have of course been other noticeable changes including a significant decline in the wild bird population especially sparrows and starlings, also the wild flowers in the hay meadows and cornfields and the loss of meadow grasses and the elm trees, which used to dominate the hedgerows.

Stourton Caundle today is unrecognisable from the village I grew up in the 1950s, when milk production was still crucially important for the village economy. There were dairy herds at all six of the former main estate owned farms, Manor Farm, Brunsells Farm, Barrow Hill Farm, Newleaze Farm, Higher Woodrow and Woodrow Farms, together with herds at Newland and Rockhill Farms, with the land attached to both of these farms formerly part of Newleaze Farm. There were also dairy herds at Cockhill, Haddon and Brunsells Knapp Farms. Fred Priddle also had a herd of around a dozen cows, renting land and a milking shed at the rear of Gwyers, making a total of twelve dairy farms operating within the parish boundary. A common site on a summer afternoon was to see Fred’s cows ambling down the high street following afternoon milking, to graze in the orchard at the rear of his residence at Myrtle Cottage. Although some pigs and free-range hens were kept, and a few acres of were corn grown, most local farms mainly relied on milk production for the main source of income. Milk production has subsequently ceased at all twelve of these locations.

Brunsells Farm shortly before the relocation to Brunsells Knapp

The abolition of guaranteed milk prices after the First World War meant that there was no funding available for maintenance of buildings, or for investment in tractors, machinery or the installation of milking machines. The formation of the Milk Marketing Board resulted in a return to a guaranteed minimum price for milk giving dairy farmers the confidence to invest in milking machines. Until the early 1950s these herds consisted mainly of Shorthorn cattle. There was a gradual introduction of Friesian cows during this decade and by 1960 this breed had mostly replaced the Shorthorns.

Deregulation of milk prices in 1994 hastened the ongoing reduction in the number of dairy herds. The one remaining dairy farm, now relocated to a purpose built buildings at Brunsells Knapp, has a fully automated milking unit. Comparison with the methods employed and the number of personnel involved, in milk production at the twelve dairy farms in the village during the 1950s, illustrates the revolution that has taken place in milk production, both locally and nationally. The vast improvements in hygiene, nutrition and animal husbandry, combined with the modern methods used for rearing and frequency of herd replacements, have resulted in the significant increase in milk yields and milk quality during the last sixty years.

Manor Farm

I spent most of my time outside of school hours on Manor Farm. In my primary school days this was usually with the owner’s son Reg Garrett. The dairy herd at Manor Farm was made up of about seventy shorthorn cows. Two tractors were in use on the farm in the early 1950s, an International and a Case. Two shire horses called Punch and Toby still had plenty to do. My earliest recollections of Manor farm include placing the sheaves of corn into stooks in a field by the name of Garvey at the far end Caundle Lane, and watching my grandfather making spars in the outbuilding below the farmhouse. The copper for heating the water, for use in the dairy at milking time, was located here and on inclement cold winter days provided him with a warm refuge to make spars, using hazel sticks collected when hedge laying. Faggots from hedge laying provided fuel for the copper and the hot water was carried in two large buckets to the dairy, suspended by chains from either end of a yoke carried on the shoulders. I can also remember driving, or rather steering the Case tractor, while potato planting in Townsend, as my legs were not long enough to reach the brake or clutch pedals.

At the end of each school day I would race down the road to our home at Bridge Cottage and change into my old clothes, before dashing across the road to the farm, to assist with the milking and to suckle the young calves. My first memory of hay-making was in a field called Little Mead a meadow adjoining the Caundle Brook now incorporated into Barbeys. The haystack was being built beside the brook and the hay was brought to the elevator with a hay sweep attached to the tractor. Bob Green, the landlord of the Trooper Inn, who worked part time on the farm during the busy summer months, joined forces with my father in the evenings to pitch the hay into the elevator.

My father’s working day began at 6am sharp, with the morning milking and ended at 5pm. During the hay-making and harvesting seasons work continued until dusk. The case and international tractor drivers were Eddie Bond and his son David. Eddie and his two sons David and Peter worked on Manor Farm at this time, and lived next door to me at number 1 Bridge Cottages.

As soon as the hay-making was complete, the corn harvest was ready to start. The corn was cut by means of a self-binding machine, with the wooden shafts replaced by an iron tow bar to enable it to be drawn by a tractor. The sheaves of corn were picked up from the ground and placed into stooks by the other farm staff. These included my Grandfather Ernest Palmer whose normal duties were hedging, ditching, thatching and spar making. The stooks were erected in parallel lines around the field and between each double line an aisle, was left just wide enough to allow the wagon to pass between them. The loaded wagons were then hauled back to the farm and corn stacks erected in the rick-yard at the rear of the farm buildings.

The annual visit of the threshing team of Art and Bert Cooper, with their threshing tackle and Field Marshall tractor, was another enjoyable occasion for me and signalled a very busy few days for all the farm staff. The threshed corn was bagged off into large hessian sacks known as West of England and stored in the tithe barn adjoining the farmhouse. The separated straw was re-bundled and tied into manageable bundles by a straw trusser, positioned at the rear of the threshing machine and then placed in a new stack, which was later thatched by my grandfather. On reaching the bottom of each corn stack mice and rats started to run in all directions, trying to make their escape. I was waiting for them with a stout hazel stick in my hand, with the farm dog, a spaniel by the name of Dash, alongside me. On wet weather days each sack was weighed on a set of scale, and the contents adjusted by adding or removing grain until it contained the correct weight. In the case of wheat this was two and a quarter hundredweight. On one such occasion Dave Bond bundled me into a West of England sack attaching a rope to the neck, which was then thrown over a roof truss and I was unceremoniously hauled to the roof of the barn much to the delight of those present.

Shep Knight was a shepherd in his younger days in Wiltshire and he teamed up with my father in the winter months to cut and haul the kale for fodder for the cattle. They cut acres of kale, mostly the narrow stemmed variety, both were on the short side and in a good season the kale was often taller than they were. They used reap hooks to cut the kale, and then lay it in small straight heaps, to make the loading onto the wagon as easy as possible, using long handled four prong picks. This cutting had to be done even in the most atrocious weather conditions, at times the kale would be frosted and freezing cold to handle. On other occasions it would be pouring with rain with mud up to their knees. In these conditions Shep and my father would dress up in oilskins from head to toe. The kale was hauled to the field where the cattle would spend the night and spread around a wide area so they had room enough to feed. Punch and Toby were the two horses used for hauling kale. Punch was the shaft horse, while Toby was in the traces. It was heavy going for the horses in the depth of winter, with the mud as deep as the axles of the wagon wheels in the field gateways.

Hay also had to be hauled to the cattle. A round trip up Holt Lane and across several fields to the rick could take a couple of hours by the time they returned with a load of hay. The hay was cut from the rick with a hay knife, then my father lifted each truss onto the wagon for Shep to load. Old Shep liked his pint of cider and most lunch times he would walk out of the farm gate across the road to the Trooper, before walking up Golden Hill on his way home for dinner.

By the mid 1950s two grey Ferguson tractors, supplied by Percy Windsor from Yeovil, had replaced Toby and Punch. By 1956 a Massey Harris baler and combine harvest had also arrived as well as the first two Friesian cows named Darky and Fairy. All the dairy cows had names, usually after a flower, including Bluebell, Iris, Violet and Daisy. I knew the name of every cow and the name of every field on Manor Farm at this time. The combine harvester had a six feet cutting blade and the corn was bagged off into West of England sacks, each weighing around two and a quarter hundred weight, which had to be manually lifted from he ground onto a flat bed trailer for transportation back to the barn. At about the same time two covered yards were erected on the site of the former rick yard, to provide overnight shelter for the dairy herd during the winter months.

Health and safety was not such an important issue on farms in the 1950s and children were allowed to ride on farm tractors and on top of the loaded wagons. I can remember as a small boy riding to and from Holt Lane on Dave Bond’s matchless motorcycle, perched between his inner thighs on the front edge of the seat and the fuel tank. I did have one near miss when I was tipped out of the Ferguson transport box in a field called Humpy Knoll.

My Grandfather Ernest Palmer made baskets and clothes pegs from dogwood and willow wood. Wild rose briers were used as rose stocks for budding new roses in his garden as he was also a keen gardener. He built the ricks during hay-making and harvesting and when crop had been safely gathered in; he would thatch the ricks using the spars he had made himself. Spar making was a wet weather job in wintertime, working in one of the farm sheds. The thatch was made from wheat straw, while the spars were made from selected hazel sticks, which were of a suitable dimension, cut by my grandfather when laying field hedges. Hedge making and ditching would commence around leaf fall and continue until March. The excavated material from the bottom of the ditch was placed evenly along the ditch bank. The new hedge was formed by using a bill-hook to cut the upright sticks, with the layered sticks then pegged down with crooks cut from the hedge.

My grandfather spent most of his days working alone in the fields adjoining Holt Lane and Holt Wood, some distance from the farmyard. His lunch consisted of bread and cheese, and a bottle of cold tea. During wintertime his lunch break was usually spent sheltering under the leeward side of a hedge, with only the birds for company. For a little warmth he would light a fire from the waste material from his hedge laying activities. On these freezing cold days a few wild birds such as Robins and Blackbirds would join him for lunch, all looking for tit bits. Most hedges provided a great deal of re-usable material such as pea and bean sticks, spar gads and bundles of wood for fire kindling. These useful items were all neatly placed in their respective piles and tied with a wooden bond, ready for to haul back to the farmyard with the horses.

Whatever job, he was master of it, even when mangold hoeing no one else could keep up with him. Quite a few acres of mangolds were grown and if they were not flat hoed after germination they would soon get choked with weeds. As soon as the flat hoeing was finished they had to start again this time thinning the crop out, known as singling. Another hoeing was necessary when the mangolds had grown a bit, to keep the weeds in check, and to assist the swelling of the crop. The mangolds were then left unattended until harvesting time, usually starting around the middle to the end of October. Taking three lines a piece the mangolds were pulled up by their leaves from the soil, then twisting the leaves from the top and throwing them into heaps at mid distance between us. By keeping the heaps in straight lines, and at the right distance apart, hauling would be made a lot easier. The mangolds were then loaded onto a trailer and hauled to the clamp, located in a suitable place near the cow stall. They were then thrown back by hand into the clamp, which was constructed in the form of a gable roof. The completed clamp was then thatched in the same way as a haystack. This ensured that the mangolds remained in good condition throughout the hardest winter weather.

The memories of the many happy childhood hours I spent in the fields adjoining Holt Lane and Holt Wood have remained with me throughout my adult life. I still return on a regular basis, at all times of the year, to walk through Holt Wood and along Green lane, enjoying the splendid views over the western part of the Blackmore Vale. Then down to the rookery at the top end of Holt Lane, no longer echoing to the sound of the nesting rooks in the springtime. Along the Caundle Brook, through Humpy Knoll, and Barbeys, before climbing to the top of Tinkers Hill named after the Romany gypsies who were still regular visitors to Holt Lane in the 1950s.

There are some very noticeable changes the loss of flower and fauna in the fields and especially around the field edges, including wild orchids. Cowslips and primroses were in abundance then and the cornfields were a mass of red poppies before harvesting time. The loss of the elm trees, the decline in the number of songbirds, especially skylarks, and the disappearance of the rooks from the coppice at the far end of Holt Lane. The whole area seems to be so much quieter now, with no sign of farming activity or of cattle in the fields.

Enid Blyton purchased Manor Farm in 1958 and a young farm manager, fresh from farming college, with new ideas and farming methods, appointed. Hedges were removed, meadow grassland ploughed up and rye grass planted for silage. The remaining Shorthorn dairy cows were replaced with Friesian cows housed during the winter months in a covered yard, and calf pens were constructed in the former milking shed to wean heifer calves. The new decade of the swinging sixties was approaching and life on Manor Farm, as had existed from Victorian times, was coming to an end.

St Peters Church

I was christened at St. Peters Church in the April of 1947 by Cannon Delahay. The Church still had a strong influence on village life in the 1950s and all children were expected to attend Sunday school every Sunday afternoon from an early age. We were given a stamp to stick in a book every time we attended and each year a prize was awarded to the child with the best attendance record.

Improvements to the chancel took place in 1951, as the result of a gift from the three daughters of Mr and Mrs Fernandez, these included the replacement of the ornamental screen above the altar, and replacement of the choir stalls. In the same year A.E. Barritt was appointed as the vicar, followed in 1954 by F.L. Uppleby. In the winter months a coal fired boiler, installed in an external boiler house and connected by means of a two-inch diameter pipe to cast iron radiators in the church provided heat. Mr Cecil Orchard lit the boiler every Saturday morning, in readiness for the Sunday services, but as it became older and less efficient, the heat it generated made very little difference to the temperature inside the church on a cold frosty morning. Finally in 1960, on the recommendation of the Churchwardens Miss Doris Ludlow and Mr Foxwell, the members of the Parochial Church Council agreed to install wall mounted radiant heaters fuelled by propane gas.

The Church Fete in 1957

Following the appointment of the Reverend F.L. Uppleby the annual Church Fete, organised by the Parochial Church Council, was held every summer in the Rectory gardens. The annual Fete was one of the highlights of the village social calendar. There were various stalls, children’s sports and fancy dress competitions, and teas were served from the kitchen window of the Rectory. The format changed little from year to year, and the event provided one of the main sources of income for St Peters Church.

In May 1958 the Reverend S.J. Osborne who was a master at Sherborne Boys School was appointed as the vicar for the parishes of Stourton and Purse Caundle. During his seven years in the post, he actively encouraged the participation of the younger generation in the activities of the Church, with the formation of a Youth Club, reforming the Church Choir, and for those of us who could not sing an introduction to bell ringing. Fred Priddle and Fred Baverstock were experienced ringers and during the late 1950s taught Rosemary and Helen Julius and Ted Foxwell to ring. Along with several other village lads, including Michael Harris, Michael Screen and Dennis Reddicliffe I started ringing in 1960, initially receiving tuition, in bell control, and ringing a bell up and down, from Ted Foxwell. I have continued to ring church bells throughout my adult life and fifty-four years on I am back ringing again on a regular basis in St. Peters Church. I also pumped the organ for Sunday services, following the retirement of Miss Oliver, for a payment of 6d a service. Mrs Burch was the Church Organist and the position, between two markers, of a lead weight, suspended on a piece of string, indicated the amount of air in the organ bellows. Failure to maintain sufficient air in the bellows was immediately apparent, with a sudden change in the tune of the organ. Furious pumping of the foot pedal by the Organist was required to recover the situation

I also cut the grass in the Cemetery at Drove Road and at Purse Caundle Cemetery. In 1961 I took over the daily responsibility for winding of the church clock. The clock, located in the middle stage of the tower, was driven by weights, which required raising every twenty-four hours, connected to the tenor bell. The clock would only chime on the hour, as it did not have a face or hands. An iron skeleton face was erected during the 1902 restoration, but the provision of clock hands, and connection to the clock mechanism was never completed. I have to admit being responsible for the damaging the teeth on a brass cog, which formed a part of the clock’s winding mechanism. The clock remained silent until the 1977 Silver Jubilee project, when the clock was restored and converted to electric, with a clock face and hands connected to the drive mechanism.

During the winter of 1960 I attended weekly evening confirmation classes at the vicarage, with separate classes held for boys and girls, followed by a confirmation service, held in St. Peters Church, conducted by the Bishop of Salisbury.

The Reverend Osborne and Mrs. Peel ran the youth club, which met on a weekly basis in the village hut. Games such as table tennis were played, and records featuring the recording stars of the day were played on a Dansette record player. As well his pastoral duties for the parish, Mr. Osborne was also a mathematics teacher at Kings School Sherborne, and during the summer months he arranged for the club to have the use of the schools swimming pool and tennis courts on Friday evenings. Free transport was provided and after the evenings sporting activities were over, fish and chip suppers were purchased from Jock Quirks at Higher Westbury.

The Church Choir 1960

Harvest Supper

The harvest supper was first held in 1961, organised by Mr. Ted Foxwell on behalf of the Parochial Church Council. During the early 1960s the harvest supper was most notable for the after effects of the home made cider, provided by Mr. Sam Harris of Brunsells Farm. The supper consisted of traditional bread, cheese, cold meats and pickles, and apple pies of numerous varieties covered with local cream, followed by music provided by Dennis Holloway from Stalbridge with traditional ballroom dancing. Rock ‘n’ Roll and the Liverpool sound had not yet arrived in Stourton Caundle.

The Reverend Osborne retired 1965 and there was a lapse of six months before the appointment of Mr. L.G. Inge